Are corporations people?

Mitt Romney got mocked during the 2012 presidential campaign for the very idea.

The Associated Press reported that it turns out the principle has been lurking in U.S. law for more than a century, and the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, gave it more oomph this week when it ruled that certain businesses are entitled to exercise religious rights, just as do people.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court’s majority, said protecting the religious rights of closely held corporations, which are often small, family-run businesses, “protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them.”

In its ruling, the court said closely held corporations with religious objections cannot be forced to pay for their employees’ insurance coverage for contraception, as required under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Four years earlier, the corporations-as-people idea got another big boost when the court voted 5-4 to expand the free speech rights of businesses and labor unions by striking down limits on their political spending. That unleashed a massive flood of private money into political campaigns.

The rulings have triggered renewed debate over the idea of corporations as people, which surfaces in legal cases stretching back to the 1880s.

There are wonky legal discussions about the differences between “artificial persons” (corporations) and “natural persons” (the kind with flesh and blood).

TV comics riff on the notion that fake people have more rights than real people.

There’s a petition drive to amend the Constitution to ensure that “inalienable rights belong to human beings only.”

Short URL: http://www.jenningsdailynews.net/?p=27559

Posted by Graphic Designer 2
on Jul 3 2014. Filed under Editorials.
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